By Tiernan Ray

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech

Alibaba Group Holding, the privately owned Chinese e-commerce firm that is planning a U.S. listing in the imminent future, has made a $65 million investment in a whopping $280 million Series D investment in Tango, which offers a free texting, calling and video chat service for mobile devices, as related in a blog post today by Tango founder Uri Raz and Eric Setton.

The service has 200 million members, and 70 million active monthly users. Alibaba is taking a minority stake. The total invested in the company since its 2009 founding is $367 million. The company declined to disclose its post-money valuation in response to my question put to them.

Shares of Jabil Circuit (JBL) are down 12 cents, or 0.7%, at $18.14, after the company yesterday afternoon missed fiscal Q2 expectations, and forecast this quarter lower as well. There has been one upgrade, however, this morning, from Scotia Capital’s Daniel Chen, from Underperform to Sector Perform.

One striking feature of the report was the company offering an outlook for next fiscal year’s profit. RBC Capital’s Amit Daryanani, who has an Outperform rating on the shares, this morning writes that “While we are impressed by JBL’s comfort and confidence to provide FY15 guidance we suspect investors may remain cautious till there are concrete signs of ramps.”

“Positively, JBL is positioned to see sales and margins improve dramatically after May-qtr and the stock could do well into the iPhone cycle and benefit from other iDevices.”

China Mobile’s (CHL) announcement this morning that it activated one million new iPhone users in February, after initiating official sales of the device in mid-January, is hot helping shares of Apple (AAPL), which are down 96 cents at $530.30.

In response, Credit Suisse’s Kulbinder Garcha this morning reiterated a Neutral rating on the shares, and a $500 price target, writing that “These initial sales are in-line with our view and point to limited adoption at China Mobile, which we believe is primarily due to the high cost of the device and quality issues with its LTE network.”

“While the carrier’s large subscriber base presents a longer-term opportunity for Apple, we expect iPhone adoption to be gradual given the above factors.”

On the other hand, Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brian White, who has a Buy rating on Apple shares, and a $777 price target, writes this morning that he has already observed weaker-than-seasonal trends of late for Apple suppliers, but that despite that, “we remain excited about 2014 for Apple as it relates to the ramp with China Mobile and the potential introduction of larger iPhones (i.e., 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch versions) that we believe can help Apple gain market share in the country this year.”

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster was on CNBC this morning, and was asked about the number. He said it was “a disappointment” because it would have been nice to see some “acceleration” in sales at China Mobile. Still, he urged patience, saying payoff from China Mobile will “just take time.”

Meantime, Needham & Co.’s Rajvindra Gill notes that China Mobile also said it would increase capital investments by 22% this year, or roughly $36.2 billion. Gill thinks that is very good news for optical component suppliers such as NoePhotonics (NPTN), JDS Uniphase (JDSU), Finisar (FNSR), and Oclaro (OCLR). He also sees benefit to some semiconductor names, such as Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) and Cavium (CAVM) and Hittite Microwave (HITT).

Analysts are still “running the numbers” as to what they think Microsoft (MSFT) can make if and when it releases a version of its Microsoft Office productivity suite to run on Apple’s iPad, which it may do at next week’s media event in San Francisco.

Keith Weiss with Morgan Stanley this morning reiterates an Equal Weight rating on the shares, writing that “Our conservative analysis points to an incremental ~$1.2B in annual billings thru greater Office 365 adoption, even with a lower SKU and some cannibalization.”

“This may also signal a greater willingness from MSFT to leverage key assets across non-Windows platforms.”

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There are 4 comments

MARCH 20, 2014 11:49 A.M.

Anonymous wrote:

China is all about cheap. cheap, cheap, cheap. doesn't matter that its apple. gotta be about 150 less to compete

MARCH 20, 2014 12:31 P.M.

Robert Laughing wrote:

Were I Chinese, I would hold off on buying ANY new phone until Oct-Dec. Apple will have more options, and CHL will have greatly improved 4G by then, and be getting better going forward. Of course CHL is gong to target Beijing, Shanghai, Guangchou and major metros as a priority.

So, one can invest in Apple AFTER whatever correction is COMING.

MARCH 20, 2014 1:19 P.M.

TruthSeeker wrote:

Readers of Mr. Ray's blog, will recall that I predicted that the Chinese were not going to be going goo-goo over apple's wildly overpriced rip-off smartphones. And it's not because they're cheap. They're very smart investors who don't believe on paying more and getting less just so they can show their neighbor a half-eaten piece of fruit, and pretend that it makes them fashionable. apple has become the biggest rip-off in all of technology, and only people stuck with apple's toys continue to deny that fact. The rest of the world has long abandoned apple's smartphones and tablets.

MARCH 20, 2014 2:03 P.M.

orion wrote:

The iphone sales number is mediocre at best. 1m or less in the first month is sad and pathetic, after all the launch hoopla complete with media interviews, personal appearances by the two CEO's, and bogus lines. Btw, CM CEO is not even using the gold iphone t3 (tiny timid tim) gave him as part of the hoopla.

CM disappointing sales and earnings mean fewer dollars available for marketing and subsidizing iphones henceforth. Xi Gouhua is learning the hard way of what French Telecom CEO and others have been complaining and warning about iphone sales implosion. If they miserably failed to achieve meaningful sales after they had carefully targeted all the low hanging fruits (best cities with highest average incomes) during the launch, what do you think sales would be for the rest of the year. Meanwhile Chinese phones are getting better and cheaper by the day.

Don't expect much from iphone 6 or let pie-in-sky sales projections from lapdog analysts fool you. A larger screen iphone is no longer a big deal when good large screen smart phones are already flooding the market. Again, Chinese phones are getting better and cheaper by the day.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.